Collection of Alchemical Treatises

I have written the calcinations of metallic bodies according to the philosophers, and found them greatly natural and fit for dissolution; and because in these ordinary things the philosophers, being almost rustic, did not wish to hide anything, for it is commonly seen by the experience of stones and herbs and fern and hay that glass is made, and all by calcinations and slight depurations by those who are of the art of doing it; and thus they make species transmuted by calcinations and impressions of fire.

Arnaldus de Villa Nova and all the others who understand natural things say all with one accord that every dry thing desires its own humidity; and for this reason I shall now declare its radical and natural humidity.

And first the Waters which, following the philosophers, are called menstruums, which have power to dissolve metallic and calcined bodies for their preservation, shall be spoken of hereafter.

Here begins the practice, treating of the sayings of philosophers both modern and ancient, and principally performed and experienced by myself with my own hands, for which I give thanks to God the Father omnipotent, and to all the Holy Trinity.

Ramon Lull, in the practice of his Testament and Codicil, says that all the perfection of metals for making the perfect transmutation consists in two waters natural to them, of which one makes the metallic bodies volatile, and the other dissolves them in occulto, and in dissolving them it becomes fixed with them; of which latter water, which is mercurial, never philosophers